SENSE OF DEATH TOLSTOY AND

MICHAEL Pll. D.

COMPARISON EETWEEN TOLSTOY AND KIERKEGAARD

We begin with a legend, the legend of Na1'cissus. Who was a1'cissus ? ..

Acco1'ding to Ovid narration, he was a young beautiful man who one day... But, why must we 1'epeat this Jegend? Na1'cissus is al1'eady weJl known to fo1' we began the two p1'evious pa1'ts of ou1' essay with his legend. And we found the1'e his simila1'ity with Tolstoy (Pa1't and Kie1'kegaa1'd (Pa1't the simila1'ity which exists also between both Tolstoy and Kie1'kegaa1'd, that is, thei1' subjectivism a1't and thought. This simila1'ity, as VIre said then, is' ve1'Y impo1'tant. Fo1' this 1'eason, it must be taken into conside1'ation by eve1'yone who wants to examine Tolstoy 01' Kie1'kegaa1'd eve1'Y subject 1'elated to them, and even rno1'e

the subject of death. But, especially conce1'ning death, which is the main subject of ou1' essay, the1'e a1'e between them some othe1' simila1'-ities as well, and also some diffe1'ences. These simila1'ities and then, we a1'e now going to see immediately two sepa1'ate sections.

S m l r t e s compa1'ing Kie1'kegaard ,VitJl Tolstoy ,ve firid at fil'st a

g1'eat simila1'ity which dete1'mines gene1'al the whole content of ou1' essay and gives to it its own title. TlliS simila1'ity is the sense of death which both Kie1'kegaa1'd and Tolstoy is equally intensive. The 1'esult of this intensive sense is the conception of death as some-thing ,vhich annihilates completely the «conc1'ete» individual, and also the g1'eat despair C1'eated by this annihilation.

1. in «Concrete» or «Subjectire» Sense in Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyitch Concludjng Unscjentific Postscript.

The why Tolstoy and Kie1'kegaal'd feel death inso intensive a sense is not the exte1'io1' events, that is, tlle successioh

* Continuation i:rom 53, January-March 1982, 226.

The sense dea th in To!stoy and Kier],egaard

ofdeaths which both faced thei1' familias, but also thei1' st1'ong indi-viduality.

Though Tolstoy, opposition Kie1'kegaa1'd I , gene1'ally denies his philosophical doct1'ine the individual 2 , he himself, as Zenkov-

sky 1'ema1'ks, «possessedan individuality pa1'ticula1'ly st1'ong»3. Conce1'n-ing his own pe1'son, we can especial1y see Tolstoy's individualism the case of death which he empl1asizes so g1'eatly the 1'elation of death tothe individual and the conception death a conc1'ete sense. t is this conception of deatll that Tolstoy 3ppea1's to have his Conlession whe1'e he feels death fo1' himself a conc1'ete sense and sees the de-st1'uction which death b1'ings to his own individual. life»), he says, «came to a standstill. could b1'eathe, eat, d1'ink, and sleep, and could not help doing these tllingS; but the1'e was life, fo1' tlle1'e were wishes the fulfilment of which could conside1' reasonable... could not even wish to know the t1'uth, fo1' guessed of what it consisted. The t1'uth was that life meaningless. had as it we1'e lived, lived, and walked, walked, till had come to a p1'ecipice and saw clea1'ly that the1'e was nothing ahead of me but dest1'uction. It was impossible to stop, impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes 01' avoid seeing that the1'e was nothing ahead but suffe1'ing and 1'eal death -complete annihi1ation»4.

cha1'acte1'istic example this dest1'uction ancl annihilation death b1'ings to the individual as a «(;onc1'ete» The

Ilyitch (1886) whir,h Tolstoy puts an existential manne1'G the expe-1'ience f1'om his own t01'ment that he had felt befo1'e his Conlession.

this sho1't but booko ,,,hich begins "\\Tith the an-

1. 80 strong is indi:vidua!ity KieI'kegaard that he writes his Journals: «Had to crave an inscription my grave \vou!d ask for none ot!1er than 'the individual'" (The JouJ'nals Kl:erkegaard, 133).

2. his denia! of individua! To!stoy was influenced by Spinoza, and espe-cially by 8chopenhauer (See Schopenhauer, Die TVelt als Wl:lle and VOI'stellung,

cit., Bk. IV, § 54, 390). 3. «Tolstoy himse!f possessed an individua!ity particu!ar!y strong"

],ovsky, Histoire dc russe, 1, 436). 4. Leo To!stoy, Conlession, ch. IV, 17-18. 5. Willial11 Barrett, among others, has called t!le story of this "some·

thing a basic scripture for existentia! thought" (8ee ViJ. V. 8panos, cit., 11). 6. According to V. V. Stasov, «there is nation in any part of earth

10 possess a \vorl( so genius. small, poor, compaI'ison ,vith these seventy pages» (Stasoy's !etteI' to To!stoy, Apri! 28, 1886; see Perepiska L. ]1,1. TolstoVQ s V. V. Stasor.n.j1n, Leningrad 1829).

492

/'

Michae! Macrakis

nouncement of the death of Ivan Ilyitch, whose «history was the simplest, the most ordinary, and the most awful»l, Tolstoy makes the contrast of death a general sense with death a concrete sense. This contrast appears at the very beginning the book with the announcement of Ivan Ilyitch's death the judicial council which «the very fact of the death of an intimate acquaintance excited every one who heard of it, as such a fact always does, a feeling of relief that 'it is he that is dead, and not think! he is dead, but here am all right', each one thought feltn 2. And among a11 these so-called friends of van Ilyitch the most representative type who thought and felt death such a general sense was certainly the man ''1ho first announced to the council this tragic evenL and who happened to be the most intimate friend of the deceased. This man was Pyotr Iyanovitch who, going to the funeral service and paying the widow a visit condolence, saw the facial expression of the corpse «a reproach a reminder for the living. This reminder seemed to Pyotr Ivanovitch uncalled for, 01', at least, to have nothing to do with him»3.

However, not only van Ilyitch's friends, and especially the most intimate of them, but even the closest members of his family such as l1is wife, l1is daughter and his son thought and felt like this at his death. Even Ivan Ilyitch himself, if any one of them had died before him, would feel tlle ;,ame: «It is he that is dead, and not But, how different-ly Ivan Ilyitcn felt when, after his visit to tlle doctor, he knew that death did not concern other men general but himself particular. «At the bottom his heart Ivan Ilyitch knew that he was dying; but so far from growing used to this idea, he simply did not grasp it - he was utterly unable to gTasp it. The example of the sy110gism that he had learned Kisewetter's logic -Gaius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Gaius is mortal- had seemed to him a11 life correct only as regards Gaius, but not at a11 as regards himself. that case it was a question of Gaius, a man, an abstl'act man, and it was pel'fectly true, but he was not Gaius, and was not an abstract man; he had always been a creature quite, quite different from 311 others; he had been little Va-nya with a mamma and papa... And G3ius certaintly was mortal, and it was l'ight for him to die; but fO!' me, little Vanya, Ivan 11yitch, with

1. Leo Tolstoy, llyitch, ch. 10. 2. Ibid., ch. 2. 3. Ibid., ch. 6.

493 The sense of death Tolstoy Kierkegaard

all my feelings and ideas - for me it's a different matter. And it cannot be that ought to die. That would be too awful. ..»l.

How does this distinction Gaius as an abstract man from lit-tle Vanya as a concrete man remind us of Kierkegaard's similar distinc-tion of death a general sense from death a concrete sense which we find the Concluding Unscientific Postseript? this book, as we said, Kierkegaard speaks about Soldin, the absent-minded book-dealer.

this man and a]] those absent-minded people, who feel death a general and «objective» sense, Kierkegaard contrasts the men of his own category who feel death a particuJar and (subjective» sense, that is, death as something which concerns their own subject. this category of men Ivan IJytich also belongs. the case of his hero Tolstoy understands death a «subjective» sense though his hook he does not go so far as Kierkegaard, whom this «subjective» death takes

its extension the form seJf-mortification a stage which is caHed by Kierkegaard the Religious stage. Tolstoy limits the (subjective» death,

its concrete sense, only to what Kierkegaard caHs the Aestlzetic stage, whose highest point is

2. The Despair llyitch and Tolstoy's Conclusion: «Death ] s Better than Lile)).

We find despair as a characteristic Ivan IJyitch who «saw that he was dying, and was continual despair»3. This despair is a natural consequence of his thought and sense death a concrete sense, a resuJt his consciousness of the destruction which death brings to his individual. Under this impression he can not sleep whole nights like that night, for example, which he is despairingly tormented by these thoughts: sha]] be more, then what wiJ] there be? There']l

1. lbid., ch. VI, 41. 2. Generally, Kierkegaard distinguishes three stages of existence «Stag'es

Life's Way» (this is the of of his books), as he himself calls them. These stages corresponded the three periods of Kierkegaard's life and, determined by his relation the opposite sex, are, according Kierkegaard himself, «an aesthet-ic, an ethical, and religious stage» (Stages Lile's see Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. by. R. Bcetall, 172). ow, the Aesthetic s tage is characterized by Kierkegaard as a stage of melancholy and of imag'ination, for ccimagination is always me]ancholy». ccMelancholy its maximum is despair» 1,

aesthetic view of life is despair» (Either IOr, 2, 197). 3. L, Tolstoy, llyitch, ch. VI, 41.

Michael Macrakis

be nothing. Whe1'e then shall be when am m01'e? Can this be dying? don't want to!' He jumped up, t1'ied to light the candle ... 'Death. Yes, death... Can it be death?' hol'1'o1' came ove1' him, g1'asping fo1' b1'eath... And despai1', b1'eathless, he fell back his spine \vaiting fO!· death to come that instant))l.

This despair is not once only. Each time when the pain his kidney comes 1'emind him of his death he feels the same despai1'. «Al-ways the same thing again and again, all these endless days and nights))2. «Always the same. gleam of hope flashes fo1' a moment, then again the sea of despai1' 1'oa1's about him again))3. Always t,lle same until the moment when he began his despa1'ate sc1'eam (ethat neve1' ceased fo1' th1'ee days, and was so awful that th1'ough two closed doo1's one could not hea1' it without ho1'1'Ol·... he screamed va1'ying intonations. He had begun sc1'eaming, don't vvant to and so had gone sc1'eaming

the same vowel sound -001))4. And this sc1'eam continued fo1' th1'ee days until the moment when, finally, death itsel/ came to libe1'ate him f1'om its agony. «Death is ove1'», he said to himself. «It's mo1'e))6.

This question of death b1'ings Tolstoy himself to .the same de-spai1', a despai1' which the Con/ession appears to lead him to the point of suicide. «It had come to this», he says, (Ithat a healthy, fortunate man, felt could 10nge1' live: some i1'1'esistible powe1' impelled me to 1'id myself way 01' othe1' of life. cannot say wished to kill

1. lbid., ch. 39-40. This desparate nig11t Ivan Ilyitch reminds us that autumn evering ](arenina which Levin, under the impression

his consumptive brother Nikolai, who was to die, cannot sleep, thinking his death. «He sat his bed the dark, doubled his arms round his knees and thought ... that Death would come and end everything, so that it was useless begin any-thing, and that there was help for Yes, was terrible, but true. 'But am still a1ive: what am do now? What am do?' he said despairingly. He lit a can-dle, got up carefully, went the looking-glass, and began examining his face and hair. Yesl There were grey hairs his temples. He opened his mouth: his double teeth were beginni.1g decay. He bared his muscular arms. Yes, he was very strong. But Nicholas, who was breathing there with the remains his lungs, had once had a healthy body tOO» ](arenina, Bk. c11. 396-397). However, the position Levin VI'ho is still alive is different from that Ivan llyitch who is die. But, the similarity exists t11e fact t11at both are despair, because they feel death a concrete sense. This feeling makes them conscious the destruction which death brings their

2. L. Tolstoy, Death ](Jan lyitch, ch. 50. 3. ch. 51; see also ch. 60. 4. lbid., ch. 65. 5. lbid., ch. 67.

495 The sense death in Tolstoy and Kierkegaard

myself. The power which drew me away from was stronger, fuller and more widespread than any mere WiSll. It was a force similar to the former striving to live, only a contrary direction... And it was then that a man favoured by fortune, hid a cord from myself lest

should hang myself from the crosspiece the partition my room where undressed alone every evening, and ceased to go out shooting with a gun lest should be tempted by so easy a way ending my

did not myself know what wanted: feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped something it»l.

question -that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge suicide- », he says again another page of his Conjession, «was the simplest questions... It was a question without an ans\ver to whlch cannot as had found by experience. It was: 'Is there any meaning my life that tlle inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?'»2.

Without finding science anyanswer to the question which had brought him to despair, Tolstoy began to observe how the people a.round him and what their attitude was to this question. So he found that people had four different attitudes towards death:

«The first was that of ignorance». These kind of people, as he explains, are ignorant death and they do not See «the dragon that awaits them» but «they lick the drops of honey» in the joys of life3 •

«The second way out is epicureanism». The people this posi-tion know that the «dl'agon death» awaits them but they are indiffer-ent to it, and they throw into the joys life4 • This position yould be better expressed by the words which St. Paul USeS for this kind people th&.n those Solomon which Tolstoy uses. These words ()f St. Paul are: «Let eat and drink; for tomorrow we die»5.

«The third escape is that of stl'ength and energy. It consists

1. L. Tolstoy, Confession, ch. 18. Before the Confession, in Anna /{arenina Tolstoy had already put this death in Levin who, happy and the father a family, avoided taking any gun in his hand fearing that he should kill himself. Tolstoy, as R. Rolland remarks, the hidden tragedy Ilis gene-ration» Wllich al'Ound 1880 in Europe, and especia1ly in Russia had an inclination to""vard suicide (R. Rollan, V de

2. L. Tolstoy, Confession, ch. 24. 3. ch. 39. 4.

5. 1 Corintll. 1::1:32.

496 Michael Macrakis

life, when has understood that it an evi1 and an ab-surdity»l.

«The four-th way out that of weakness... People of this kind know that death better than life, but not having the strength to act rationally -to end the deception quickly and kill themselves- they seem to wait for something»2.

Among the people of this last kind Tolstoy reckons himself3 •

He knew that «death is better than lifeI) but he did not decide to kill himself.

3. The W Jew the Conclusion: Is l0r us the

Similar to Tolstoy's attitude towards death bllt to a more ex-treme degree that of Kierkegaard the first volume Either /Or. Tolstoy simply thought, when he was that desparate position which he desribes his Confecsion, that «death is better than life», but Kier-kegaard goes further and arrives at the conclusion, a really strange con-clusion, that «death for us the greatest happiness»4. And, if death is for man the greatest happiness, then can suspect who js the llappiest About this man Kierkegaard talks a short essay by this title Either /Or 5•

Kjerkegaard wrote this essay the literary form of «an enthu-siastic address before the Symparanecromenoi»6 taking as his motive a brief inscription which distinguishes a grave somewhere England, the inscription gave also the title to thjs essay: <<The Unhappi-est Man»7. Calling to his mind this inscription, he opens the grave before the eyes our imagination and says: «Lo, the tornb is empty! There is trace a body». And he asks: «Is he perhaps risen from the dead? Has he perhaps wished to nock the poet's word:

1. L. Tolstoy, Confession, ch. 41. 2. Ibid. 3. found myself that category» (Ibid.). See the whole chapter

which Tolstoy speaks general about the four different a ttitudes towards death. 4. S. Kierkegaard, EitherfOr, 1, 165. 5. Ibid., 214-228. 6. lbid., 215. 7. Ibid., 217. «The epitaph», as the translator notes, «really exists

Worcester. Chateaubriant mentions this» 452).

The sense ot death Tolstoy and Kierkegaard

... the grave there peace, Its siJent dweJJer from grief knows release.

Did he find rest, not even the grave; does he perhaps wander restlessly about the world ?»1 Is he a wandering man? Is this man the Wandering Jew? Yes, at the empty tomb maybe we must search for 11im, tlle unhappiest man, «for we, dear Symparanecromenoi», the speak-er says, «we, like the Roman soldiers, fear not death; we know of great-er misfortunes, and first and last and above aJJ-life. If indeed there were some human being who could not die, if the story told of the Wan-dering Jew be true, then how could we hesitate to declare him the 11appiest man? Then we could also explain why the tomb was empty,

order to signify, namely, that the unhappiest man was the Olle who could not die, could not doV\rn into a grave. The case would be de-cided, the answer easy: for the unhappiest man was the one who could not die, the happy, he who could; happy he who died his old age, happier, wlloever died his youth, 11appiest l1e who died at birth, happiest of all he\vho never was born... »2.

Tlle essay from which we quoted the above long passage, as every other essay the first volume of Either jOr refers to the Aesthet-ic stage, and, therefore, the man who makes his address to Sympara-necromenoi an Aestheticist, that a man who arrives at his conclu-

about death from great despair since, according to Kierkegaard, ",every aesthetic view of life despair»3.

Generally, the Aesthctic stage characterized by melancholy, which melancholy also cllaracterizes Kierkegaard especially

the Aesthetic stage of his life. Now, this «melancholy its maximum despair»4 which the hightest point of tlle Aesthetic. This despair

constitutes the subject of the unto which Kierkegaard indentifies it with «Despair», he says, Sifi»G. «Sin the potentia-tion despair»7. Therefore, and despair are one and the same. The

1. 217. 2. Ibid., 218-219. 3. S. Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 2, 197. 4. 1, (Translator's Preface). 5. This work, of the most important works of Kierkegaard, was pub-

lished July 1849. 6. See the second part of KieI'kegaard's work, Sickness unto Death,

208ff. 7. 208.

Nr', 2 32

498 Michael Macrakis

diffe1'ence on1y is the is conscious while the othe1' is unconscious. When the pe1'son who is despai1' begins to be conscious of it, then this despai1' him becomes sin.

Unde1' this distinction between conscious and unconscious de-spai1' we must also unde1'stand the position of Kie1'kegaa1'd himself when

his (Ap1'i124, 1848) he speaks of a te1'1'ible melancholy which his ea1'liest youth th1'ew him fo1' a time into sin and debauche1'yl.

This ((te1'1'ible melancholy» which is «melancholy its maximum» the yea1's of and the1'efo1'e «despa.i1'» becomes sin his eyes be-cause the yea1' 18482, when he w1'ites the above lines his

he is conscious of the despai1' of his youth, that is, of his sins. F1'om these sins, then, of the pe1'iod of «pe1'dition» Kie1'kegaa1'd t1'ies that yea1', that is his pe1'iod, to pu1'ify himself by self-mo1'tification. And it is exactly this mo1'tification that makes Kie1'kegaa1'd diffe1' f1'om Tolstoy the subject of death. But let us see now the sequel this 01' any othe1' diffe1'ence between them thei1' attitude towa1'ds death.

D f f e r e n c e s ou1' examination of simila1'ities between Kie1'kegaard and

Tolstoy the sense of death we found two main simila1'ities: 1) Both think of death and feel its powe1' a conc1'ete sense cont1'ast to death a gene1'al 01' abst1'act sense, and 2) the question of death leads

Kierkegaa1'd and Tolstoy, to despail'. And, as we said, the fi1'st simila1'ity de1'ives f1'orn the succession of deaths that both faced thei1' families and especially f1'om thei1' st1'ong individuality, while the second similarity, the other hand, is a natu1'al consequence of the fi1'st since the man who feels death a concrete sense feels it also as a dest1'uction of the individual as a «conc1'ete». Fo1' this 1'eason, these two similarities a.1'e essentially and the same. Both refe1' to the sense of death which both Kirkegaa1'd and Tolstoy is equally st1'ong.

However, spite of this simila1'ity, there is a g1'eat diffe1'ence between them, the diffe1'ence whicll dete1'mines particular the con-tent of the two parts this essay: fi1'st, Cont1'ast Dea.th to Life Tolstoy»; and second, «The Identity of Death with Life Kierkegaa1'd». This diffe1'ence derives f1'om the diffe1'ent solu-

1. 141. 2. the year 1848; as Kierkegaard writes his he was at the ze-

nith of his religious life: "Now am in faith in the profoundest sense» (Ibid., 142).

The sense of death in Tolstoy and 499

tion which each these two philosophe1's gives to the p1'oblem death 1'eIation to But, Iet make he1'e cIea1'e1' what exactIy consti-

tutes the diffel'ence tllei1' solutions.

1. The Contrast Death to Lile Tolstoy.

Though Kie1'kegaa1'd and Tolstoy, as we said, coincide the suc-cession deaths thei1' famiIies, they 1'epel each othe1' like opposite poles as conce1'ns the conditions thei1' he1'edita1'Y conditions and acqui1'ed condltivns. These conditions a1'e so diffe1'ent that they could cha1'acte1'ize the case Tolstoy as «happiness» and the case

Kie1'kegaa1'd as «suffe1'ing». Tolstoy came f1'om a famous family whose mate1'nal ancesto1's

went as fa1' back as Pete1' the G1'eat. Besides his a1'istoc1'atic name he had a la1'ge estate Yasnaya PoJiana whe1'e he could financiaJIy independent and di1'ect contact with Natu1'e which so much

Tolstoy's happiness depended, as he w1'ote his «Happiness is being with Natu1'e, seeing he1', and conve1'sing with he1'»l. This deep feeIing Natu1'e, as we have said, is 1'elated to his st1'ong heaJth and unique vitality. The1'e a1'e a few only who could have such heaIth as did Tolstoy, who Iived so Iong a time -he died at the age eighty-two- without eve1', du1'ing all those yea1's his Iong suffe1'ing f1'om any se1'ious disease. His vitaJity was unique: a vitality which was manifested so ea1'Iy his life by a st1'ong sensibility. It was this sensibiIity that him put himself enti1'eIy into eve1'ything. And, it was this vitality that pushed him to 1'ush with such violence and pas-sion into the joys as J. Lav1'in 1'ema1'ks, (cwas b1'imming OVe1' with vitaJity, ,vith passion and the joy

these natu1'al conditions his we must add also the ac-qui1'ed conditions we would Iike to shape a complete pictu1'e Tol-stoy's Such an acqui1'ed condition, fo1' example, is his famiIy hap-piness, at least dUl'ing the fi1'st fifteen yea1's \vhich fo]]owed immedi-ateIy afte1' his ma1'1'iage, and the fame a g1'eat w1'ite1', passibly the g1'eatest the nineteenth and not only Russia but outside Russia, as we]].

About a]] these natu1'al and 1'equi1'ed goods, he w1'ites his Contession as f(\llows: «1 was not yet 1 had a good wife who Ioved

1. L. Tolstoy, Cossacks, tI'ans. by Maude, ch. xxxiii, 188. 2. J. LavI'in, Tolstoy: An AppI'oach, 81.

500 Michae! Macrakis

me and whom loved, good children, and a large estate which without much effort my part improved and increased. was respected by my relations and acquaintances more than at any previous time. was praised by others and without much self-deception could consider that my name was famous. And far from being insane or mentally diseased,

enjoyed the contrary a strength of mind and body such as have seldom met with among men of my kind; physically could keep up witl1 the peasants at mowing, and mentally could work for eight and ten hours at a i:ltretch without experiencing any results from such exertion. And this situation came to this - that could not live, and, fearing death, had to employ cunning with myself to avoid taking my own life»l.

If Tolstoy did not life so much, he would not have felt the power of death such a strong sense. His lust for life made him put all his interest this material world and to make his happiness dependent earthly goods. For this reason, his fear death derives from the fact that he sees death as a destruction of the individual not so much a metaphysical as in a physical sense. As J. Lavrin remarks, «it was not so much the metaphysical as the physical and biological fear of death that overwhelmed him with a despair which was really nothing else but his inverted and fullblooded of happiness and of ... His gradual orientation towards death was all the more crusl1ing because of his enormous vitality. It was the vitality of a materialist who secretly believed this world and was scepticaJ of any 'beyond', while

full well that everything existing this world is doomed to perish. The very exuberance of his joy life thus turned against itself. It degenerated into hatred of life, into negation and despair»2.

Generally, Tolstoy, as we see, there is a contrast of death to life3 though Marie S6mon, seeing the writer's case from another aspect, believes that there is him, especially after his spiritual crisis (1880c.), «an identity between life and death»4 for, according to her,

1. Leo To!stoy, Confession, ch. IV, 18-19. 2. J. Lavrin, cit., 82. 3. Besides J. Lavrin and others, see a!so S. Zweig who a specia! chapter

his book To!stoy treats ttTo!stoy's vita!ity and its opposite [i.e. deathJ» (8. Zweig, Tolstoi 23-48).

4. Marie Semon, «La femme temoin des sacrements de et de mort, dans rellvre de in hui, Paris, Institllt d' Etlldes 8!aves, 1980,

136.

501 The sense death in Tolstoy and Kierkegaal'd

IITolstoy unites birth and death a unique sacrament, that of the Life»l. But the real identity, as we ourselves understand it this essay, exists Kierkegaard and not Tolstoy2.

2. The Identity with Lile in

opposition Tolstoy, Kierkegaard identifies death and life. This difference derives from conditions which are diffel'ent Kierkegaard from those ToIstoy. First, as concerns their health, Kierkegaard is the opposite of Tolstoy. From very early life he suffered from a naturaI weakness. And it was this weakness which Ied him so early to the death - he died at half of Tolstoy's age, at the age of fourty-two. «There can be doubt», says \"1. Lowrie, (Ithat Soren \vas a very frail child, and whatever his malady may haye been, it pursued him to the end, probably occasioning his early death. It is perhaps most plausibly attributed to a marked curvature of the spine, occasioned, as he believed, by a fall from a tree early childll00d. Some sort of spinaI trouble was the vague diagnosis of tlle hospital, whither he was carried from the street after a fall which was the resuH paralysis, and where he died a few weeks»3.

These bad conditions of his health connection with the at-mosphere of death whicll he had liyed from the yery beginning of his life transported to him a terrible melancholy, a melancholy which, ac-cording to his expression, became through his whole life his «most faith-ful mistress». It ",as this melancholy which threw him early youth into the despair of the sin and debauchery and which a few years later flung him down into its abyss by having to break off his engagement with Regina OIsen4 • He never married. his whole life he remained a single man without eYel' feeling the caress of a deyoted 'Nife and without ever tasting famil)T happiness, the happiness of a man with a Iovely woman the midst. of many children, as Tolstoy }jyed at least during the first fifteen years ('f his famiIy life. Kierkegaard always ljyed alone with the companionship of his most faithful mistress - melancholy. And besides this, he was constantly accompanied by the idea of death, the idea that he could not beyond thirty-four.

1. Ibid., 137. 2. Comp. Macrakis, The Sense Death and Longing /or Redemp-

Leo Tolstoy, 88n., 195-227 (in GI'eek). 3. W. Lowrie, Short Li/e Kierkegaard, 40-41. 4. Journals 141.

502 Michae! MacI'akis

Conside1'ing a11 t11ese ha1'd conditions of Kie1'kega1'a1'd 's 1ife, we can unde1'stand W11Y 11e wl'Ote: am the deepest sense an unfo1'tu-nate individua1 ,vho has fl'Om t11e ea1'1iest age been nailed fast to one suffe1'ing 01' anothe1', to the ve1'Y ve1'ge of insanity, ,vhich may have its deepe1' g1'ound a disp1'opo1'tion between my soul and my body»l. \Ve can see, then, that opposition to To1stoy, the sense of death

cont1'asted ta the st1'ength of his 11ealth, Kiel'kegaa1'd the sense of death is abso1ute agl'eement with his natu1'a1 ,veakness. «T!le sense

his physica1 infel,jo1'ity», 1'ema1'ks W. fo1' Kiel'kegaa1'd <cwas an .acute dist1'ess th1'oughout his who1e life. He cOlllmon1y spoke of it as 'disp1'opo1'tion between my sou1 and my body'»2.

Indeed, all of Kie1'kegaa1'd's 1ife, we can say, was a continuous suffe1'ing that his JQurnals 11e speaks again and again f1'om the very beginning about pain and suffe1'ing.

And it this suffe1'ing that made his 1ife a continuous pI'epa1'a-tion fo1' death, that is, a self-mo1'tification: «to 1ive as thoug1l dead (dead to the This mo1'tification t111'oug1l suffe1'ing ob1iged him to p1ace his hopes and intel'ests anothe1' 1ife and not as To1stoy this life which, fo1' Kie1'kegaa1'd, did not diffe1' at a11 f1'om death itself. Life and death Kie1'kegaa1'd a1'e identical.

3. The Determination the Di//erence between Tolstoy ,and ierkegaard by their Relation to the «Absolute» ierke-gaard's Similarity to DostoefJsky).

Tl1e diffe1'ence between Kie1'kegaa1'd and To1stoy as conce1'ns thei1' attitude t,owa1'ds deat11 is dete1'mined by the diffe1'ence which cha1'acte1'izes them in thei1' 1'e1ation to the AbsQlute. Both Kie1'kegaa1'd and To1stoy a1'e abso1utists but t1ley diffe1' f1'om each othe1' the fact that the fo1'me1' sea1'ches the abso1ute the ete1'na1 wo1'1d ,vhich is t1le 1'ea11yabso1ute wo1'1d, a wo1'1d without the limitations of p1ace and time, a world without beginning and end, while the 1atteI' searches fo1' the abso1ute this tempora1 wor1d which is a relative and finite wo1'1d. «To1stoy's pl1ilf'sophic searchings», says Zenkovsky, «follo\\7ed tl1ei1'

1', quote Lhis of Kierkegaard from Lowrie's .vork ShoI'l Life of 42.

2. Ibid., 41. 3. 0/ 254.

503 The sense death Tolstoy and Kierkegaard

own specific dia1ectic, whose point of departure was an intuitive-inte1· lectua1 perception of the inseparabi1ity and indivisibi1ity of temporal and eternal, re1ative and Absolute... The good must be Absolute or it is not good-such is the result of To1stoy's searchings»1. 1t is Tolstoy's «thirst for an authentic and absolute good» that makes him submit to a kind of «se}f-crucifixion». «Tolstoy», according to Zenkovsky again, <cwas the martyr of his own ideas which tormented his con-sciousness, destroyed his life and his relations with 11is family, with his neighbors, with all culture»2.

1n opposition to Tolstoy, whose drama consists his endeav-ors to find the absolute in the temporal, Kierkegaard, as we said, pursues the attaintment of the absolute eternity. choose the abso1ute», 11e says. «And what is the absolute? 1t is myse}f my eterna1 va1idity»3, «a recognition of the eternal va1idity of the persona1i-ty»4. To1stoy does not recognize this validity because he does not be1ieve in the resurrection of the dead and immortality5. «Tolstoy», according to

Zenkovsky, «does not believe personal immorta1ity and yet more unacceptab1e for him is t11e resurrection and the reestab1ishment of the individua],)6 immorta1ity. But for Kierkegaard this be1ief is very fun-damenta1. 1t is a be1ief that makes him see his 1ife as being identica1 with death and the 1ife beyond grave as the rea1 and true 1ife. And it for the sake of this eterna1 1ife or immorta1ity that he is urged to submit himse1f to se1f-mortification.

The drama of Kierkegaal'd, therefore, is different from that of To1stoy, whose «se1f-crucifixion» is a desperate endeavor to attain the impossib1e: the searching of the absolute the temporal. Kierke-gaard, his «se}f-mortification» endeavors to gain the eternal by

1. Histoil'e rk Philosophie I'usse, 1, 442. 2. Ibid., 434-435. 3. S. Kierkegaard, Eithel' /01', 2, 218. 4. Ibid., 219. 5. Tolstoy rejects personal immortality. one the last entries his JOUI"

(September 4, 1910) Tolstoy wri tes: «Individual peI'sonality is what prevents the meI'ger Soul witJl and after death my soul will remain but not m)' peI'sonaIity" (Leo Tolstoy, Dial'ies, edited, ,",ith Intl'Oduction, by Leon StiJman, New YOl'k, G. Putnam's Sons, 1960, 173; comp. FebI'uary 13, 1910,

53). his rejection of peI'sona] immortaIity Tolstoy was inCluenced by Spinoza and Schopenhauer MacI'akis, cit., 119-125; see also the whole chapter, 113-134).

6. Zenkovsky, cit., '1, 431.

504 Michael Macrakis

sacrifice of the temporal1. And, it is this point that he relates self-mortification with immortality.

This rela,tion makes Kierkegaard feel joy the thought that the f.chool of sufferings prepares him for eternity. From this point of view

is simi1ar not to T01stoy but to Dostoevsky who a1so re-lates suffering' with eternity. For the 1atter the eterna1 is the Abs01ute, that is, God. opposition to God, "vho is the abs01ute Good, evi1 the world is the tempora1. For Dostoevsky, according to Pau1 Evdokimov, «evil is an idea1 moment the nothingness; it at tlle same time the wor1d the power negation of th.e Abs01ute rathcr than the power of se1f-negation»2 But evil has a1so a positive va1ue3 ,vhen it purifies man by suffering. This means, according to Evdokimov again: «to feel that purifies is equal to feel the nothingness of man, therefore, turns towards that which he lives, towards the Absolute»4.

this sense, as Berdyaev interprets Dostoevsky's tl10Ught, «the good that can be derived from evil attained by the way of suffer-ing and repudiation of Dostoievsky believed firmly the redemp-tive and regenerative power of suffering»5.

This meaning of suffering the main idea of Dostoevsky's last and best novel, The Brothers (Bratya Karamazovy)6. As Berdyaev says, «it is from the Karamazov wor1d itself that thc new man has to be born... resurrection is victorious oYer death the sou1

A1yosha and htJ js born again>I7• 50, Alyosha folJowed «the path of Christ [which] was from G01gotha to the resurrection and victory over death»8. The wholA book, as Ernest J. 5immons remarks, ends by the

1. Kiel'kegaal'd tl1e second volume of his Eithe,'/O,' quotes again and again Christ's saying: «What is a man pl'ofi ted, i f 11e sl1all gain the whole world, and l0se his own soul?» (Matt. 16:26). And, as he explai ns, by «sou!» he understands the «self" , that is, the «individual» (Either /0,·., 2, 224).

2. Paul Evdukimov, probliJme du mal, Pl'eface d' CJement, Pal'is, Desclee De Brouvvel" 1979, 402.

3. Ibid.,

4. Ibid., 176. 5. Berdyaev, Dostoievsky, trans. by Donald Attwatel" York, Merid-

Ian Books, 1957, 95; see also 92, 109, 203. 6. See Clll'ist's sayi ng tl1e Gospel accol'ding to J 011n, 12:24 whicl1

Dostoevsky chooses as motto I1is book. 7. Berdyaev, cit., 207-208. 8. Ibid., 203.

505 The sense of dea th Tolstoy and Kierkegaard

joyful note of resurrection when I1usha's funeral Alyosha informs Kolya and his playmates that the dead sha]] rise 1 •

Alyosha is the most representative among Dostoevsky's heroes. And the path that he followed from Golgotha to the resurrection is the path of Dostoevsky himse1f who at the end of his Jife, after so many sufferingsz, found the joy of resurrection. And, like Dostoevsky, KieI'-kegaard passed «through suffering tojoy», a joy derived from the hope of eternity. Therefore, Kupt F. Reinhard's characterization of kegaard as «a Christian who deeply experienced tl1e agony Mount Calvary but without its sequel, the joy and gladness of Easter,,3 is not true. It is true, of couI'se, the sense that the emphasis Kier-kegaard's writings is Calvary because of his «contemporaneousness»: his participation Christ's Passion by suffering. But this mortification

reality was for him a deliverance from deatl1, a spiritual resurrection with its consequence of eternity, from which Kirkergaard derived his joy and gladn3ss as can See obviously his Gospel Sullerings

which he emphasizes mucl1 the joy which comes through suffering.

1. J. Simmons, Dostoie()sky, lYo()elist, London, Oxford University Press, 1940, 362.

2. one has feH human 5uffering more acutely than Dostoievsky, and his heart is over-bJeeding» Berdyae", cit., 107).

3. F. Reinhardt, Cleavage of Minds» "01. 24, 23, October 3, 1936, 524.

506 :Michael :Macl'akis

CONCLUSION

Death is a subject wl1ich does not COllCel'll reJigion but also what Kierkegaard calls the Aesthetic stage life. Genel'ally tl1e Danish philosop11er, as\ve said, distinguislles three stages existence 01' «Stages

Life's Way»I, as hr. himself calls them. These stages are, according to him, «an aesthetic, an etl1ical, and the religious, yet not abstract like the immediate, the mediate, the unity the two [to use the language

the speculative philosophy], but concrete in the existential pleasure-perdition; action-victory; suffering»2.

These stages, as we can see the above quotation, been charac-terized as «existential» al'e contrasted by Kiel'kegaal'd to the «abstrac-tiofi» the speculative philosophy metaphysics which simply is .

. «The metaphysical», he says, «is abstraction, there is man who exists metaphysically. The metaphysical, ontology, is but does not exist; for when it exists it is the aesthetic, in the ethical, in the religious, and when it is it is the the prius ior the aesthetic, the ethical, tl1e religious»)3.

HOWeVel', thic distinction betV\'een «what it iS) and «what it be-comes», which is a distinction between essence and existence, is also made by within the spheres life alone as a distinction between tl1e aestl1etic and the ethical. So, in tl1e second volume ther /0,' whose sub.iect is tl1e ethical stage, he talks about the diffel'enCe

this stage from the aesthetic as fOllOWS: «The aesthetical a man»,

1. This the title of a Kierkegaal'd's wol'k edited Apl'il 30, 1845 by the pseudonym Hilarjlls BookbindeI'.

2. S. KieI'kegaard, Life's Intl'oduction, 10. As FI'ithiof Bl'andt I'emar!<s, "So;'en Kierkegaal'd's principal stages correspond more 01' less epicul'eanism, stoicism, and christianism» (Fr. Bl'andt, Soren (Jie, ses oeu(Jres, tl'ad. par Pierre Martens, Copenhague, Det Danske Se!skab, 1963,

3. S. Kiel'kegaaI'd, Life's 430. Kierkeg'aal'd says the above wOl'ds, making the contrast his stages existence Hege!'s system which logic and metaph)'sics as a thought and I'eality aI'e both Kiel'-kegaard abstract thought only, kno\vledge without reality (See S. KieI'kegaaI'd,

Coneept 12).

507 The sense death To]sto;y and Kierkegaard

11e sa)TS, «is that by which he is immediate1y what 11e is; the ethica1 is that where by he becomes vvhat he becomes»l.

the same we must a1so understand within the reli-gious stage alone the distinction between and which is a distinc-tion between the theoretica1 and practical aspects of religion and as SUCl1 therefore is a reflection of the difference between speculative phi-losophy and existence in general. Referring especially to Christianity as a religion, Kierkegaard says: «Speculative philosophy must not call itself Christian. me therefore relig'iousness has been called Chris-tian 01' Christianity»2. «The specific thing in is the dialec-tical in the second instance»\ that is, religiousness ,vhich means «to become and to be Christiall»6.

that «the ethical sphere is according to Kier-kegaard, «a transitional sphere»6 bet,veen the aesthetic and the religious, we can understand that the real contrast exists bet,veen the first and the third spheI'es. It is the contrast of the aestl1etical which a man «is immediately what he is»)? to the I>eligious, that is, «to what he strives faith to beGome»8. This contrast, which reality the same with that of potentiality to actuality, analogolls the contrast we have Seen between tl1e «abstractioll» of the and the «concreteness» of the three stages of existence in general.

Basing ourselves this contrast, then, ",'e have treated our subject of death, the hand, an «abstract» sense distinguished from death in a «concrete» sense (physical death); and, the other hand, death a sense disting'uished from mortification as a means of immortality. other words, our treatment refers to death

tl1e state of «being» and to deatl1 the state of «becoming). The first case tl1at of Tolstoy: who in his attitude towards death

remains t,he aesthetic stag'e of 1ife. He the man who imme-diate1y what he is», \vithout ever deciding' to make tl1e leap into tl1e state of becoming9• For tl1is reason, thoug'h he feels deathin a concrete

1. S. Kierkegaal'n, /01', 2, 182; see a]so 229. 2. S. Concluding Unscientific 498. 3. Ibid., [.96. 4. lbid., [.97. 5. Ibid. 6. S. Kierkegaal'd, Li/e's 430. 7. S. Kierkegaard, 2, '182. 8. S. Kierkegaal'd, T/'embling, 17. 9, Even case that we accept that Tolstoy, after his spiritual crisis

508 Michae! Macra kis

sense, he arrived at despair1 which is the highest point of the aesthetic stage. opposition to ToIstoy, Kierkegaard sees death as a «dying to the world», that is, as seIf-mOl'tification view of eternity. For this reason, he endeavors «to become a Christian))2, participating Christ's Passion by suffering which is the main characteristic of the religious stage3 •

(1880c.), enters the religious stage, he remains again the state of «being,,; for he could never go further than Re!igiousness which, as representing the specu-!ative aspect of re!igion, is opposed to its practica! aspect which Religiousness

expresses as a state of (ibecoming". Tolstoy his mora! and religious doctrine was a!ways contrast his own !ife (About this contrast see Macrakis,

cit., 1. ToJstoy was despair onJy during his spiritua! crisis, that is, at the

time he was I1is Confession "vhich, as he says, this despair Jed him to the verg'e of suicide. reaIity, he continued to be despair even after his crisis, from the beginning of his Iife unti! his death. proof of this is his escape from home which is a desperate effort for redemption during the !ast days of his !ife (lbid., 263ff.).

2. "vhole life and his work as an author is an endeavor be and remain a true Christian. one of his "vorks he states that «the who!e of [his] work as an author is re!ated Christianity, to the probIem 'of becoming a Chris-tian'» (8. Kierkeg'aard, of View for my WOf'k as Author, trans., with an Introduction, by Walter Lowrie, New York, Harper and Brothers, 1962, 5-6). For this reason, he is against the theoretica! Christianity of I-IegeI and thecompromised Christianity of the Church of his country. a series of hard-hitting articles written

his !ast years (1854-1855) and compiled as Attack upon «Christendom», «he ut-tered», according' J. D. Collins, «his 'midnight cry' against a state church as a con-tradiction of terms, asking only that admiL that, was true Christianity but a confol'tab!e compromise between Christ and socia! power» (James D. Collins, ,,8oren KierkeA'aard", Encyclopaedia Americana, Danbury, Connecticut, Americana CorpOl'ation, 1979, 16, 408).

3. Christianity, according Kierkegaard, is «truthfuJly presented as suffer-ing» Journals of Kierkegaard, 209). For this reason, «to be a Christian» is

Jesus Christ ta!l{s about; cross and agony and suffering, crucjfying the flesh, suffering for the doctrine, being sa!t, sacrificed, etc.» (8. Kierkegaard, Attack upon «Chf'istendom», tl'ans., with an Introduction, by Lowrie, Boston, The Beacon Press, 1959, 34-35). The resuIt of this and sacrifice is the joy view of eternity. is the joy that Kierkegaard himself felt through his who!e life of suffer-ings. And, "vhen he died, he was fiJled, according J. D. Collins, with this joy, the joy» (J. D. CoIlins, cit., 408).